Singapore—Pearl Lam Galleries is pleased to present Crossfades and Drawn Forms, a duo exhibition featuring a selection of works by Iranian artist Golnaz Fathi and Chinese artist Lan Zhenghui. Transforming the gallery interiorinto an echo chamber of lines and interventions, the exhibiting works include paintings, a series of lightboxes, and a video projection.

Reinterpreting classical forms, Fathi’s free abstractions of the written word coalesce with Lan’s monumental ink landscapes to form an undulating visual rhapsody. The spiritual and intuitive strokes central to the artists’processes of creation unravel themselves upon closer scrutiny, juxtaposing introspection with expression.

Fathi’s practice is rooted in traditional Persian calligraphy, a sacred form of art in the Islamic world. Her motivation is derived from the calligrapher’s warm-up exercise known as shiah mashgh, or “black practice”, where letters are repeated until the page is saturated with black ink. Fathi employs this technique with reverence and delight; she considers it the most natural representation of an artist’s individuality. Making contemporary works after years of calligraphy training, Fathi’s every gesture on canvas is charged with liberating emotion. Her latest pen on canvas series is directed by her withdrawn state of consciousness, a collision of persistence and surprises as the quivering lines break free of Arabic script. In contrast, her untitled acrylic on canvas work is more controlled with the brushstrokes a graphic intersection of hand and heart becoming one. The lines stand out from the grey background, themselves forming a powerful melody that reverberates against “the sound of silence”.

Fathi’s practice is rooted in traditional Persian calligraphy, a sacred form of art in the Islamic world. Her motivation is derived from the calligrapher’s warm-up exercise known as shiah mashgh, or “black practice”, where letters are repeated until the page is saturated with black ink. Fathi employs this technique with reverence and delight; she considers it the most natural representation of an artist’s individuality. Making contemporary works after years of calligraphy training, Fathi’s every gesture on canvas is charged with liberating emotion. Her latest pen on canvas series is directed by her withdrawn state of consciousness, a collision of persistence and surprises as the quivering lines break free of Arabic script. In contrast, her untitled acrylic on canvas work is more controlled with the brushstrokes a graphic intersection of hand and heart becoming one. The lines stand out from the grey background, themselves forming a powerful melody that reverberates against “the sound of silence”.

As the artists move away from the conventions of their disciplines towards abstraction, their art unlocks a boundless sea of connotations and emotive possibilities. The sheer scale of Lan’s 6-metre long painting E04 produces an infinite feeling of space and time. An intangible spirituality emerges from the heavy ink, as its weight and power swell in impact. Fathi’s black Plexiglass lightboxes deconstruct the drawn medium by suspending the spirit of her lines using holographic light. In a similar vein of transcendence, Fathi’s video projection Seasons Changing is a colourized ebb and flow of her pen on canvas triptych Knotted Roots, bringing the mysterious tinge of afterlife to a finished painting.

Presented altogether, the dynamic lines and swathes of colour traverse between mediums and schools of practices and thought built on by Fathi and Lan. Driven by their innate meaning—a culmination of discipline, dexterity, and rumination from many years of academic study and refinement of their craft—the collection of drawn forms is a testament to their continuous redefinition of calligraphy and ink painting. A phenomenal transpiration of the essence of art making, Fathi’s and Lan’s ongoing artistic dialogue between the then and now conflates Eastern and Western ideals, cementing their place at the forefront of Asian contemporary art.

About the Artists Born in Tehran in 1972, Golnaz Fathi is an influential member of a thriving generation of artists to surface in Iran over the last twenty years. While studying graphic design at Azad University in Tehran, Fathi became fascinated by the expressive potential of traditional Persian calligraphic forms. She later became one of a tiny handful of women trained to the highest level within that discipline, before developing her practice as a contemporary artist. Her works carry traces of meaning that have no known coded alphabet; they express natural emotions in the absence of literary language. Fathi has received a number of awards, including the Best Woman Calligraphist in Ketabat Style in 1995 by the Iranian Society of Calligraphy in Tehran. She was a member of the main competition jury of the Sharjah Calligraphy Biennale in 2010 and was chosen as a Young Global Leader Honoree by the World Economic Forum in 2011. Her works are in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; British Museum, London; Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore; Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; and The Farjam Collection, Dubai. She has also exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, including in Hong Kong, New York, Paris, New Delhi, China, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Germany, and Switzerland. Fathi currently lives and works in Tehran, Iran.

Born in 1959 in Sichuan, China, Lan Zhenghui graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1987. His style has been termed “heavy ink” by art critic Liu Xiaochun for the grandiose scale of his works and the weight of power and spirit within them. Chinese iconography haunts his shapes and strokes—the naturalistic allusions to mountains, rivers, and storms surge and fade dramatically to create an immersive splendour of intense emotion. In 2000, he launched a “power brush” movement with some of his fellow artists to promote the natural sense of motion and power in ink brush and oppose contrived methods of expression. His works have been presented internationally with solo exhibitions in the USA, Switzerland, China, Indonesia, and Canada. Notable group exhibitions include the Third Biennale China-Italia, Turin, Italy (2015); Creating Identities, 56th Venice Biennale, Kenyan Pavilion,Venice, Italy (2015); Spiritual as Mountains, Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong, China (2014); and 28 Chinese, Rubell Family Collection/Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami, USA (2013). His works have been collected by the Rubell Family Collection, USA; the British Consulate General Guangzhou; the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Guangzhou; National Art Museum of China, Beijing; the Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou; China Songzhuang Ink Painting League, China; Florida Gulf Coast University, USA; and the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto, Canada. Lan currently lives and works in Beijing, China.